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Auction strategies (1 Viewer)

1) While it's considered a girly move, nominating a kicker / defense early is a good strategy. You get a top defense / kicker right away or someone else wastes a dollar.

2) Has anyone had success with nominating players far out of order? I'm not allocating a lot of budget to QB this season, so I'm thinking about putting up a non-Top QB (e.g., Romo, Wilson) with my first nomination. I feel like most owners in my league will be apprehensive because they don't want to overbid without seeing the prices of higher-ranked QBs, so I can potentially get someone on the cheap. Also, if I wait to be the last team drafting a starting QB, I think I will get a couple teams price-enforcing on that last starting QB which will drive the price up on me, or force me to take the 13th-14th QB off the board instead (in a 12-team league). On the flipside, doing this would require me to nominate someone I want, and tipping my hand could drive price up. Just curious to hear any war stories using this strategy.
Yes, #2 works wonderfully. I wrote a bit about using it in the article mentioned in my previous post.

Thing is you have to remember that what you're doing is testing other owners conception (and uncertainty) in the prices. People are used to thinking about salaries top down... if Rodgers makes $X then they understand what Roethlisberger is worth.

So the results can vary widely. You might get a steal, or the player might get drastically overspent. Or he might go for exactly what you had as his value. It's definitely worth doing.
Case by case. I tried this last year with Matt Ryan and it blew up in my face.

 
1) While it's considered a girly move, nominating a kicker / defense early is a good strategy. You get a top defense / kicker right away or someone else wastes a dollar.

2) Has anyone had success with nominating players far out of order? I'm not allocating a lot of budget to QB this season, so I'm thinking about putting up a non-Top QB (e.g., Romo, Wilson) with my first nomination. I feel like most owners in my league will be apprehensive because they don't want to overbid without seeing the prices of higher-ranked QBs, so I can potentially get someone on the cheap. Also, if I wait to be the last team drafting a starting QB, I think I will get a couple teams price-enforcing on that last starting QB which will drive the price up on me, or force me to take the 13th-14th QB off the board instead (in a 12-team league). On the flipside, doing this would require me to nominate someone I want, and tipping my hand could drive price up. Just curious to hear any war stories using this strategy.
Yes, #2 works wonderfully. I wrote a bit about using it in the article mentioned in my previous post.

Thing is you have to remember that what you're doing is testing other owners conception (and uncertainty) in the prices. People are used to thinking about salaries top down... if Rodgers makes $X then they understand what Roethlisberger is worth.

So the results can vary widely. You might get a steal, or the player might get drastically overspent. Or he might go for exactly what you had as his value. It's definitely worth doing.
Case by case. I tried this last year with Matt Ryan and it blew up in my face.
In what sense did it blow up?

 
Looking for advice on how to tweak the Draft Dominator auction baselines - the default ones still stick Rodgers at like $58 in a 6pt passing league (with yardage bonuses) but I don't know that I'd ever approach that plateau. Need advice on how to tweak it from someone with successful experience navigating DD for an auction draft. Thanks,
Not counting scoring system and the actual projections, there are three major things in DD that drive the auction prices.

1) The baseline that you set will change the VBD value for each player. That VBD value is eventually multiplied by the Discretionary Money in the league, and divided by the total VBD points available, to reach a value. So changing VBD value changes cost. Some baselines, like Joe's baseline, have built in weighting applied to the baselines. Other choices may not, or you may build in your own weighting such as using by positional rank.

2) In the Setup screen, bottom left, is Calc Starts Top and Calc Starts Base. This is a calculation based on MT's auction method. Essentially what it says is, the amount you pay should be influenced by the number of fantasy games he's likely to actually start for you. And QB1 tends to start a lot more fantasy games than does QB10. So MT is saying there should be some extra weighting involved. I believe the first value is how many starts you think the top player gets, and the bottom is how many the baseline player gets, and then it interpolates between them for everyone else. MT did a study of some leagues to see what real values were for that, and he fit an equation to the data so you can calculate the number for any player. In DD, click on Help -> Auction Pricing to be taken to his article that has the formulas.

3) In the install directory there is an auction.csv file which applies a multiplier somewhere in the calculations based on position rank. I believe it multiplies their VBD value used in calculations, though the displayed one doesn't change. The multiplier for QB1 is 1.4, for QB2 it is 1.35 and gradually descends, while the first 13 RBs get 1.5 as a multiplier. You can edit this file to your liking, including adding additional rows. I recommend saving a copy of the original. I believe this was put in because values didn't tend to match what they saw in real auctions (though I could be wrong on that).

Ok, so those are the ways you can change the auction prices. So which do you change? That's a really tough question. You can really influence them wildly depending on what you do, and what you want them to show.

I have my own preferences which are largely driven by my playing in non-standard leagues, where the weightings are different. So I'm not sure how much I'd advise you to go with my settings. I sometimes make every player in auction.csv a value of 1 to remove it from the equation. Or other times I've gotten real data on number of fantasy starts from my league history, and I set Calc Starts and ENd to the same number so it effectively removes it from the calculation, and then I built my own auction.csv with multipliers based on expected number of starts.

For a standard league though, I'm not sure if you want to go that route. I do feel leery of using the default auction.csv with Joe's baseline because I do think it double dips. I think people generally overpay for the top players and too much was done to try to make the results look more like real leagues, rather than leave them showing the top players are overpaid. I think if you include MT's starts stuff, that picks up most of what needs to do be done in that regard.

So, that's probably what I'd do in a standard league. I'd probably make auction.csv all be 1's and set my own VBD baselines, but I'd stick with MT's Calc stuff, and make sure the numbers were appropriate for my league. (MFL has a report on how many times players started that is great).

 
You can quickly get behind. I don't even recommend using the draft dominator.
lolI've been enjoying multiple brews during fantasy auctions for many years now.

Here's to you, Draft Dominator! For helping me keep up!
:goodposting: :banned:

Draft Dominator is awesome for auctions. Great way to snag players and call out the excel nerds when their forumals are messed up so they have to throw players back into the pool. Always fun to get drunk and kick ### with DD.
I've been finding that Draft Dominator waaaaaaay overvalues bench players (with a commensurate undervaluing of studs) in, well, all auction leagues I've been in. I much prefer my Excel Nerd spreadsheet. I calculate price enforcer values along with my max $ value on every player, and automatically adjust all prices with each player that closes.
Max value seems self explanatory - but what are price enforcer values - amounts you'll always bid a player up to? How do you calculate that number?

Seems like a useful tool to have.
Basically, it depends on where you set your baselines. I don't value bench at all when targeting my studs, so my baseline is first non-starter (QB13 in 1 QB leagues). However, if I instead set my baseline at average bench player (QB18) (I give my starters 100 percent of difference from their expected points to 1st baseline and 25 percent of difference from 1st baseline to 2nd), I come up with a price I wouldn't mind paying (price enforcer price).

For example, if I calculate $65/45 for Doug Martin, and I decide I want him to be my cornerstone RB, I'll drop off at $65, but if I already have AP, and am planning on getting a stud WR, and Martin is going at 40, I'll bid him up to 45 and be ok landing him (which will require a change to my strategy, but is a solid value, so worth it).

Obviously, you can tweak the methodology easily (baselines and 25 percent adjustment), but the tool has worked well for me. Flexibility is the name of the game in auctions.

 
1) While it's considered a girly move, nominating a kicker / defense early is a good strategy. You get a top defense / kicker right away or someone else wastes a dollar.

2) Has anyone had success with nominating players far out of order? I'm not allocating a lot of budget to QB this season, so I'm thinking about putting up a non-Top QB (e.g., Romo, Wilson) with my first nomination. I feel like most owners in my league will be apprehensive because they don't want to overbid without seeing the prices of higher-ranked QBs, so I can potentially get someone on the cheap. Also, if I wait to be the last team drafting a starting QB, I think I will get a couple teams price-enforcing on that last starting QB which will drive the price up on me, or force me to take the 13th-14th QB off the board instead (in a 12-team league). On the flipside, doing this would require me to nominate someone I want, and tipping my hand could drive price up. Just curious to hear any war stories using this strategy.
Yes, #2 works wonderfully. I wrote a bit about using it in the article mentioned in my previous post.

Thing is you have to remember that what you're doing is testing other owners conception (and uncertainty) in the prices. People are used to thinking about salaries top down... if Rodgers makes $X then they understand what Roethlisberger is worth.

So the results can vary widely. You might get a steal, or the player might get drastically overspent. Or he might go for exactly what you had as his value. It's definitely worth doing.
Case by case. I tried this last year with Matt Ryan and it blew up in my face.
In what sense did it blow up?
I threw him out first round of bidding as the first QB of the board, thinking I'd get him cheap since QB value hadn't been established. Nope. He went for well above what I predicted.

But like I said it's case by case. Last year, Matt Ryan was surging up the boards during draft season, so this may have been an instance where he was sub-dermal, but still a hot commodity. To support your approach, I'd say throw out lower ranked guys early that you want, who aren't surging up boards come draft time. Then you can get value. I recall this happening in past years with 2nd tier players that come out in the first two rounds of nominations.

 
1) While it's considered a girly move, nominating a kicker / defense early is a good strategy. You get a top defense / kicker right away or someone else wastes a dollar.

2) Has anyone had success with nominating players far out of order? I'm not allocating a lot of budget to QB this season, so I'm thinking about putting up a non-Top QB (e.g., Romo, Wilson) with my first nomination. I feel like most owners in my league will be apprehensive because they don't want to overbid without seeing the prices of higher-ranked QBs, so I can potentially get someone on the cheap. Also, if I wait to be the last team drafting a starting QB, I think I will get a couple teams price-enforcing on that last starting QB which will drive the price up on me, or force me to take the 13th-14th QB off the board instead (in a 12-team league). On the flipside, doing this would require me to nominate someone I want, and tipping my hand could drive price up. Just curious to hear any war stories using this strategy.
Yes, #2 works wonderfully. I wrote a bit about using it in the article mentioned in my previous post.

Thing is you have to remember that what you're doing is testing other owners conception (and uncertainty) in the prices. People are used to thinking about salaries top down... if Rodgers makes $X then they understand what Roethlisberger is worth.

So the results can vary widely. You might get a steal, or the player might get drastically overspent. Or he might go for exactly what you had as his value. It's definitely worth doing.
Case by case. I tried this last year with Matt Ryan and it blew up in my face.
In what sense did it blow up?
I threw him out first round of bidding as the first QB of the board, thinking I'd get him cheap since QB value hadn't been established. Nope. He went for well above what I predicted.

But like I said it's case by case. Last year, Matt Ryan was surging up the boards during draft season, so this may have been an instance where he was sub-dermal, but still a hot commodity. To support your approach, I'd say throw out lower ranked guys early that you want, who aren't surging up boards come draft time. Then you can get value. I recall this happening in past years with 2nd tier players that come out in the first two rounds of nominations.
But that's a good thing. If someone overpaid for the player then he hurt his team and has less money to spend on other players you might be acquiring.

 
A decade of auctions behind me have revealed a basic but effective strategy for me year in and out...

Pick your favorite SAFE RB and WR from rounds 1-3 of your typical snake draft. Get them. "Overbid" if you must. Prioritize safety over upside with these two. Then sit back and wait for value to emerge.

If you play your cards right, you'll end up with your two favorite early round talents and a bunch of guys from rounds 4-8 to fill out your roster. I've done this time and again, without fail, except when I've effed up by either:

1. Not bidding enough for my favorite safe studs; or

2. Getting greedy and bidding up for a 3rd stud. This can work, but it's much more tricky. You will have a roster full of $1 and $2 talent beyond your big three, which can be a toxic recipe if luck and extreme sleeper knowledge aren't in your corner.
Not just a decade+ of auctions here, but in the last four years alone, I'm in or have been in almost 80 money league auction redrafts. I am a junkie. On a basic level I agree with and use the above approach. On a more complex level I have a hard to explain approach to managing tiers and my budget throughout an auction.

What is the old cliche' about why auctions are superior? Because you can have any player you want. That's the key for me, and then every year there's long threads advising against targeting specific players and seeking value. I auction because I want my guys, and I don't want some chump drafting ahead of me sniping them. I recently paid more for Dez than Calvin went for. It sucked. I would have bought Calvin had I known. But I got my friggin' guy and moved forward. I also got Trent Richardson and Lesean McCoy. I think you can get a 3rd stud if you're willing to go ultra low on TE AND QB, which I am this year. Anyway, I was just driving McCoy's price because he seemed too cheap and everyone stopped bidding. Careful of that.

 
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What is the old cliche' about why auctions are superior? Because you can have any player you want. That's the key for me, and then every year there's long threads advising against targeting specific players and seeking value. I auction because I want my guys, and I don't want some chump drafting ahead of me sniping them. I recently paid more for Dez than Calvin went for. It sucked. I would have bought Calvin had I known. But I got my friggin' guy and moved forward. I also got Trent Richardson and Lesean McCoy. I think you can get a 3rd stud if you're willing to go ultra low on TE AND QB, which I am this year. Anyway, I was just driving McCoy's price because he seemed too cheap and everyone stopped bidding. Careful of that.
I understand there are some people who that description of the cliche might be what they get out of it, and what they enjoy.

But I don't think that's what people normally mean by that. I think the normal meaning is, you are not forced to miss a player who is a good value just because of where your pick fell. That is, if Peterson falls to 1.06, you have no shot at him if your first pick is 1.12. In an auction, if Peterson or any player is going for only 80% or 90% of what he should be, you can go get him.

Edit to add: You know what, maybe you're right, and that's what the majority of people mean. I just have a hard time picturing people thinking that way. Paying more than you believe a player is worth just because you want him on your team, hurts your team. I don't understand why people would do that... especially in cash leagues.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
What is the old cliche' about why auctions are superior? Because you can have any player you want. That's the key for me, and then every year there's long threads advising against targeting specific players and seeking value. I auction because I want my guys, and I don't want some chump drafting ahead of me sniping them. I recently paid more for Dez than Calvin went for. It sucked. I would have bought Calvin had I known. But I got my friggin' guy and moved forward. I also got Trent Richardson and Lesean McCoy. I think you can get a 3rd stud if you're willing to go ultra low on TE AND QB, which I am this year. Anyway, I was just driving McCoy's price because he seemed too cheap and everyone stopped bidding. Careful of that.
I understand there are some people who that description of the cliche might be what they get out of it, and what they enjoy.

But I don't think that's what people normally mean by that. I think the normal meaning is, you are not forced to miss a player who is a good value just because of where your pick fell. That is, if Peterson falls to 1.06, you have no shot at him if your first pick is 1.12. In an auction, if Peterson or any player is going for only 80% or 90% of what he should be, you can go get him.

Edit to add: You know what, maybe you're right, and that's what the majority of people mean. I just have a hard time picturing people thinking that way. Paying more than you believe a player is worth just because you want him on your team, hurts your team. I don't understand why people would do that... especially in cash leagues.
This is what I mean. Sure, at the top half it allows everyone a shot at AP (or whoever) and didn't someone show that the first few picks have an unfair advantage. So from that perspective, you have a shot at everyone and if you really like one or two of the top guys, you can get them.

But the reason I like it is that if you have one of the first or last picks, you are theoretically looking at 20+ picks between picks. So a guy you might be really high on, you can't get for value b/c you either have to grossly overpay or hope he falls.

 
Looking for advice on how to tweak the Draft Dominator auction baselines - the default ones still stick Rodgers at like $58 in a 6pt passing league (with yardage bonuses) but I don't know that I'd ever approach that plateau. Need advice on how to tweak it from someone with successful experience navigating DD for an auction draft. Thanks,
Not counting scoring system and the actual projections, there are three major things in DD that drive the auction prices.

1) The baseline that you set will change the VBD value for each player. That VBD value is eventually multiplied by the Discretionary Money in the league, and divided by the total VBD points available, to reach a value. So changing VBD value changes cost. Some baselines, like Joe's baseline, have built in weighting applied to the baselines. Other choices may not, or you may build in your own weighting such as using by positional rank.

2) In the Setup screen, bottom left, is Calc Starts Top and Calc Starts Base. This is a calculation based on MT's auction method. Essentially what it says is, the amount you pay should be influenced by the number of fantasy games he's likely to actually start for you. And QB1 tends to start a lot more fantasy games than does QB10. So MT is saying there should be some extra weighting involved. I believe the first value is how many starts you think the top player gets, and the bottom is how many the baseline player gets, and then it interpolates between them for everyone else. MT did a study of some leagues to see what real values were for that, and he fit an equation to the data so you can calculate the number for any player. In DD, click on Help -> Auction Pricing to be taken to his article that has the formulas.

3) In the install directory there is an auction.csv file which applies a multiplier somewhere in the calculations based on position rank. I believe it multiplies their VBD value used in calculations, though the displayed one doesn't change. The multiplier for QB1 is 1.4, for QB2 it is 1.35 and gradually descends, while the first 13 RBs get 1.5 as a multiplier. You can edit this file to your liking, including adding additional rows. I recommend saving a copy of the original. I believe this was put in because values didn't tend to match what they saw in real auctions (though I could be wrong on that).

Ok, so those are the ways you can change the auction prices. So which do you change? That's a really tough question. You can really influence them wildly depending on what you do, and what you want them to show.

I have my own preferences which are largely driven by my playing in non-standard leagues, where the weightings are different. So I'm not sure how much I'd advise you to go with my settings. I sometimes make every player in auction.csv a value of 1 to remove it from the equation. Or other times I've gotten real data on number of fantasy starts from my league history, and I set Calc Starts and ENd to the same number so it effectively removes it from the calculation, and then I built my own auction.csv with multipliers based on expected number of starts.

For a standard league though, I'm not sure if you want to go that route. I do feel leery of using the default auction.csv with Joe's baseline because I do think it double dips. I think people generally overpay for the top players and too much was done to try to make the results look more like real leagues, rather than leave them showing the top players are overpaid. I think if you include MT's starts stuff, that picks up most of what needs to do be done in that regard.

So, that's probably what I'd do in a standard league. I'd probably make auction.csv all be 1's and set my own VBD baselines, but I'd stick with MT's Calc stuff, and make sure the numbers were appropriate for my league. (MFL has a report on how many times players started that is great).
I really don't like MT's Calc stuff, because QB10 is very likely to start 14+ games for you if your second QB is QB20. (Or if you don't draft a second QB, which I have been known to do). I dislike having magic calculations going on in the background based on scenarios which may or may not be relevant to my team.

I wish the auctions.csv file were editable via GUI and part of your DDF file, it's qutie a pain to deal with as it is.

I would strongly suggest using point-based baselines instead of positional-rank baselines (including Maurile's Auction Method). Auction baselines tend to be much lower than draft baselines (to account for the fact that good backups still cost more than $1), and FBG projections for low-ranked players aren't as good as for high-ranked players. Figure out how many points a $2 RB would score and use that as the baseline. (Look at previous years in your league).

 
Looking for advice on how to tweak the Draft Dominator auction baselines - the default ones still stick Rodgers at like $58 in a 6pt passing league (with yardage bonuses) but I don't know that I'd ever approach that plateau. Need advice on how to tweak it from someone with successful experience navigating DD for an auction draft. Thanks,
Not counting scoring system and the actual projections, there are three major things in DD that drive the auction prices.

1) The baseline that you set will change the VBD value for each player. That VBD value is eventually multiplied by the Discretionary Money in the league, and divided by the total VBD points available, to reach a value. So changing VBD value changes cost. Some baselines, like Joe's baseline, have built in weighting applied to the baselines. Other choices may not, or you may build in your own weighting such as using by positional rank.

2) In the Setup screen, bottom left, is Calc Starts Top and Calc Starts Base. This is a calculation based on MT's auction method. Essentially what it says is, the amount you pay should be influenced by the number of fantasy games he's likely to actually start for you. And QB1 tends to start a lot more fantasy games than does QB10. So MT is saying there should be some extra weighting involved. I believe the first value is how many starts you think the top player gets, and the bottom is how many the baseline player gets, and then it interpolates between them for everyone else. MT did a study of some leagues to see what real values were for that, and he fit an equation to the data so you can calculate the number for any player. In DD, click on Help -> Auction Pricing to be taken to his article that has the formulas.

3) In the install directory there is an auction.csv file which applies a multiplier somewhere in the calculations based on position rank. I believe it multiplies their VBD value used in calculations, though the displayed one doesn't change. The multiplier for QB1 is 1.4, for QB2 it is 1.35 and gradually descends, while the first 13 RBs get 1.5 as a multiplier. You can edit this file to your liking, including adding additional rows. I recommend saving a copy of the original. I believe this was put in because values didn't tend to match what they saw in real auctions (though I could be wrong on that).

Ok, so those are the ways you can change the auction prices. So which do you change? That's a really tough question. You can really influence them wildly depending on what you do, and what you want them to show.

I have my own preferences which are largely driven by my playing in non-standard leagues, where the weightings are different. So I'm not sure how much I'd advise you to go with my settings. I sometimes make every player in auction.csv a value of 1 to remove it from the equation. Or other times I've gotten real data on number of fantasy starts from my league history, and I set Calc Starts and ENd to the same number so it effectively removes it from the calculation, and then I built my own auction.csv with multipliers based on expected number of starts.

For a standard league though, I'm not sure if you want to go that route. I do feel leery of using the default auction.csv with Joe's baseline because I do think it double dips. I think people generally overpay for the top players and too much was done to try to make the results look more like real leagues, rather than leave them showing the top players are overpaid. I think if you include MT's starts stuff, that picks up most of what needs to do be done in that regard.

So, that's probably what I'd do in a standard league. I'd probably make auction.csv all be 1's and set my own VBD baselines, but I'd stick with MT's Calc stuff, and make sure the numbers were appropriate for my league. (MFL has a report on how many times players started that is great).
I really don't like MT's Calc stuff, because QB10 is very likely to start 14+ games for you if your second QB is QB20. (Or if you don't draft a second QB, which I have been known to do). I dislike having magic calculations going on in the background based on scenarios which may or may not be relevant to my team.

I wish the auctions.csv file were editable via GUI and part of your DDF file, it's qutie a pain to deal with as it is.

I would strongly suggest using point-based baselines instead of positional-rank baselines (including Maurile's Auction Method). Auction baselines tend to be much lower than draft baselines (to account for the fact that good backups still cost more than $1), and FBG projections for low-ranked players aren't as good as for high-ranked players. Figure out how many points a $2 RB would score and use that as the baseline. (Look at previous years in your league).
I know it isn't an included GUI, but it's really easy to just open auction.csv in Excel or a freeware spreadsheet, make your edits and hit save. Then shut down and relaunch Draft Dominator so it picks up the new one. I spent a couple of hours testing different stuff with it just this last weekend, it was very quick and easy to make changes. Would be nice if you didn't have to bounce DD, but it doesn't take much time at all.

 
Looking for advice on how to tweak the Draft Dominator auction baselines - the default ones still stick Rodgers at like $58 in a 6pt passing league (with yardage bonuses) but I don't know that I'd ever approach that plateau. Need advice on how to tweak it from someone with successful experience navigating DD for an auction draft. Thanks,
Not counting scoring system and the actual projections, there are three major things in DD that drive the auction prices.

1) The baseline that you set will change the VBD value for each player. That VBD value is eventually multiplied by the Discretionary Money in the league, and divided by the total VBD points available, to reach a value. So changing VBD value changes cost. Some baselines, like Joe's baseline, have built in weighting applied to the baselines. Other choices may not, or you may build in your own weighting such as using by positional rank.

2) In the Setup screen, bottom left, is Calc Starts Top and Calc Starts Base. This is a calculation based on MT's auction method. Essentially what it says is, the amount you pay should be influenced by the number of fantasy games he's likely to actually start for you. And QB1 tends to start a lot more fantasy games than does QB10. So MT is saying there should be some extra weighting involved. I believe the first value is how many starts you think the top player gets, and the bottom is how many the baseline player gets, and then it interpolates between them for everyone else. MT did a study of some leagues to see what real values were for that, and he fit an equation to the data so you can calculate the number for any player. In DD, click on Help -> Auction Pricing to be taken to his article that has the formulas.

3) In the install directory there is an auction.csv file which applies a multiplier somewhere in the calculations based on position rank. I believe it multiplies their VBD value used in calculations, though the displayed one doesn't change. The multiplier for QB1 is 1.4, for QB2 it is 1.35 and gradually descends, while the first 13 RBs get 1.5 as a multiplier. You can edit this file to your liking, including adding additional rows. I recommend saving a copy of the original. I believe this was put in because values didn't tend to match what they saw in real auctions (though I could be wrong on that).

Ok, so those are the ways you can change the auction prices. So which do you change? That's a really tough question. You can really influence them wildly depending on what you do, and what you want them to show.

I have my own preferences which are largely driven by my playing in non-standard leagues, where the weightings are different. So I'm not sure how much I'd advise you to go with my settings. I sometimes make every player in auction.csv a value of 1 to remove it from the equation. Or other times I've gotten real data on number of fantasy starts from my league history, and I set Calc Starts and ENd to the same number so it effectively removes it from the calculation, and then I built my own auction.csv with multipliers based on expected number of starts.

For a standard league though, I'm not sure if you want to go that route. I do feel leery of using the default auction.csv with Joe's baseline because I do think it double dips. I think people generally overpay for the top players and too much was done to try to make the results look more like real leagues, rather than leave them showing the top players are overpaid. I think if you include MT's starts stuff, that picks up most of what needs to do be done in that regard.

So, that's probably what I'd do in a standard league. I'd probably make auction.csv all be 1's and set my own VBD baselines, but I'd stick with MT's Calc stuff, and make sure the numbers were appropriate for my league. (MFL has a report on how many times players started that is great).
I really don't like MT's Calc stuff, because QB10 is very likely to start 14+ games for you if your second QB is QB20. (Or if you don't draft a second QB, which I have been known to do). I dislike having magic calculations going on in the background based on scenarios which may or may not be relevant to my team.

I wish the auctions.csv file were editable via GUI and part of your DDF file, it's qutie a pain to deal with as it is.

I would strongly suggest using point-based baselines instead of positional-rank baselines (including Maurile's Auction Method). Auction baselines tend to be much lower than draft baselines (to account for the fact that good backups still cost more than $1), and FBG projections for low-ranked players aren't as good as for high-ranked players. Figure out how many points a $2 RB would score and use that as the baseline. (Look at previous years in your league).
I know it isn't an included GUI, but it's really easy to just open auction.csv in Excel or a freeware spreadsheet, make your edits and hit save. Then shut down and relaunch Draft Dominator so it picks up the new one. I spent a couple of hours testing different stuff with it just this last weekend, it was very quick and easy to make changes. Would be nice if you didn't have to bounce DD, but it doesn't take much time at all.
It's a pain, especially when you're looking at multiple ways to adjust auction values, and most of them are editable within DD and some of them aren't. And when you install a new DD you have to copy over the auction.csv file. And it affects all your leagues, not just the one you are tweaking with at the moment, so if you have multiple auctions you may need to have multiple .csv files and move them back and forth manually.

Unfortunately the iPad app doesn't have enough configurability or I'd jettison the DD entirely, but clearly there's not effort being put into updating the DD.

 
1) While it's considered a girly move, nominating a kicker / defense early is a good strategy. You get a top defense / kicker right away or someone else wastes a dollar.

2) Has anyone had success with nominating players far out of order? I'm not allocating a lot of budget to QB this season, so I'm thinking about putting up a non-Top QB (e.g., Romo, Wilson) with my first nomination. I feel like most owners in my league will be apprehensive because they don't want to overbid without seeing the prices of higher-ranked QBs, so I can potentially get someone on the cheap. Also, if I wait to be the last team drafting a starting QB, I think I will get a couple teams price-enforcing on that last starting QB which will drive the price up on me, or force me to take the 13th-14th QB off the board instead (in a 12-team league). On the flipside, doing this would require me to nominate someone I want, and tipping my hand could drive price up. Just curious to hear any war stories using this strategy.
Yes, #2 works wonderfully. I wrote a bit about using it in the article mentioned in my previous post.

Thing is you have to remember that what you're doing is testing other owners conception (and uncertainty) in the prices. People are used to thinking about salaries top down... if Rodgers makes $X then they understand what Roethlisberger is worth.

So the results can vary widely. You might get a steal, or the player might get drastically overspent. Or he might go for exactly what you had as his value. It's definitely worth doing.
Case by case. I tried this last year with Matt Ryan and it blew up in my face.
In what sense did it blow up?
I threw him out first round of bidding as the first QB of the board, thinking I'd get him cheap since QB value hadn't been established. Nope. He went for well above what I predicted.

But like I said it's case by case. Last year, Matt Ryan was surging up the boards during draft season, so this may have been an instance where he was sub-dermal, but still a hot commodity. To support your approach, I'd say throw out lower ranked guys early that you want, who aren't surging up boards come draft time. Then you can get value. I recall this happening in past years with 2nd tier players that come out in the first two rounds of nominations.
I don't think this strategy works well if you're targeting one specific player. There's a reason you're nominating the guy early --- either you really want him, or you really want others to think that you want him. Well, if you keeping bidding on him, then you obviously want him and people can bid that player up. Matt Ryan last year was a huge sleeper too which could have had an effect.

I think this strategy can work particularly well this year for people who are comfortable drafting lower-end QBs. Let's say I'm willing to spend $10 on a QB. That can perhaps be Stafford, Wilson, Luck, or Romo. I would keep nominating these guys and just bid them up to $9. Whoever you get first, you get. If others try to price-enforce since they believe you are targeting the QB, then let them bid the tenth dollar and just move onto the next QB. If all of those guys go for 10, then perhaps you can get a bargain on a Ryan, RG3, or Kaepernick. Or maybe the top QBs end up getting discounted and you adjust your strategy. Or maybe some teams who got caught price-enforcing will buy another QB and have a $10 backup.

I'm going to try this in a few mocks and see how it goes. I know I don't want to spend big on QB, but I need to think about nomination order for these lower-tier QBs.

 
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I'm glad this thread has gotten more fact-based over time. It started with more than its fair share of unsubstantiated, preferential claims being touted as "auction necessities". The problem was, those who swear by spending 80% of your budget on those top 3 studs were in disagreement with those shouting, "Never spend more than 20% of your budget on a single player!" But I'm the kind of guy who doesn't care how loud you shout your opinion; if you don't give me the hard facts, I simply have no reason to believe you. If I wanted these opinionated, unsubstantiated shouting matches, I'd watch Fox News.

Two articles that will give you what you need for auction strategy:

1) Maurile's pricing method article, and

(More importantly)

2) Chase's "Expected VBD" article.

This gives you all the cold, hard data you need to price players well. Ultimately, we spend money on Expected Points a player will add to our team. If your league generally spends $100 of $200 on RB1 and $60 on RB2, then PLEASE, for the love of mathematics, do not join in on the shenanigans. Take 6 RB3's and the top QB, TE, K, DST, and top 2 WRs COMBINED for that price. The 6 RB3's will likely outperform RB1 & 2 anyway, and hey, you got the best player at every other position. You will SMOKE your league. And my proof for this lies in Chase's historical VBD numbers. Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation.

I personally made my own custom auction excel sheet that averages VBD based on traditional baselines and Expected VBD from Chase's article (but flexible to every kind of scoring format), put in a dynamic pricing formula, and it has never steered me wrong. If I'm in a league where people are paying 2x my mathematical valuation at RB and only 40% of fair valuation at QB, I make sure I snatch up the number 1 QB at a major bargain (since that's where points are the cheapest on the dollar), and maybe even a second decent starter for trade bait (when the league catches on that it missed value at QB later in the season) or the top backup, and then budget for the cheapest points per dollar elsewhere in the league. If I end up with 5 RB3's in a 2-RB league, I'm not panicking in the least bit, because if I still truly bid where points were cheapest, I'll make up for my lower RB production and more at the other positions. People earlier in this thread were giving advice to avoid things (like drafting 5 RB3's) that MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE, rather than to avoid things that are mathematically losing strategies. This is an auction, and it's all math. Some of your intuitions will serve you well, but many will deceive you. Make a great cheat sheet and stick to it. If the league overvalued at one position, then make sure you grab the top players at other positions first. Then you can use your remaining money at the overspent-position and pick up lower-tier guys for relatively great prices, even if they're still above your auction sheet valuation. Since you already filled your other spots, it's now safe to "overspend", because you're sitting on top at the other positions.

As a general rule, I've found that ESPN's suggested auction prices this year overspend at high QB1, low RB1/high RB2, WR1, high WR2, and underspend at low QB1, high RB1, low WR2, low RB2, and TE1. So in those auctions I usually take a team like Romo, AP, McFadden, Gronk, and a bunch of low WR2's.

 
I'm glad this thread has gotten more fact-based over time. It started with more than its fair share of unsubstantiated, preferential claims being touted as "auction necessities". The problem was, those who swear by spending 80% of your budget on those top 3 studs were in disagreement with those shouting, "Never spend more than 20% of your budget on a single player!" But I'm the kind of guy who doesn't care how loud you shout your opinion; if you don't give me the hard facts, I simply have no reason to believe you. If I wanted these opinionated, unsubstantiated shouting matches, I'd watch Fox News.

Two articles that will give you what you need for auction strategy:

1) Maurile's pricing method article, and

(More importantly)

2) Chase's "Expected VBD" article.

This gives you all the cold, hard data you need to price players well. Ultimately, we spend money on Expected Points a player will add to our team. If your league generally spends $100 of $200 on RB1 and $60 on RB2, then PLEASE, for the love of mathematics, do not join in on the shenanigans. Take 6 RB3's and the top QB, TE, K, DST, and top 2 WRs COMBINED for that price. The 6 RB3's will likely outperform RB1 & 2 anyway, and hey, you got the best player at every other position. You will SMOKE your league. And my proof for this lies in Chase's historical VBD numbers. Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation.

I personally made my own custom auction excel sheet that averages VBD based on traditional baselines and Expected VBD from Chase's article (but flexible to every kind of scoring format), put in a dynamic pricing formula, and it has never steered me wrong. If I'm in a league where people are paying 2x my mathematical valuation at RB and only 40% of fair valuation at QB, I make sure I snatch up the number 1 QB at a major bargain (since that's where points are the cheapest on the dollar), and maybe even a second decent starter for trade bait (when the league catches on that it missed value at QB later in the season) or the top backup, and then budget for the cheapest points per dollar elsewhere in the league. If I end up with 5 RB3's in a 2-RB league, I'm not panicking in the least bit, because if I still truly bid where points were cheapest, I'll make up for my lower RB production and more at the other positions. People earlier in this thread were giving advice to avoid things (like drafting 5 RB3's) that MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE, rather than to avoid things that are mathematically losing strategies. This is an auction, and it's all math. Some of your intuitions will serve you well, but many will deceive you. Make a great cheat sheet and stick to it. If the league overvalued at one position, then make sure you grab the top players at other positions first. Then you can use your remaining money at the overspent-position and pick up lower-tier guys for relatively great prices, even if they're still above your auction sheet valuation. Since you already filled your other spots, it's now safe to "overspend", because you're sitting on top at the other positions.

As a general rule, I've found that ESPN's suggested auction prices this year overspend at high QB1, low RB1/high RB2, WR1, high WR2, and underspend at low QB1, high RB1, low WR2, low RB2, and TE1. So in those auctions I usually take a team like Romo, AP, McFadden, Gronk, and a bunch of low WR2's.
I hear what your saying, but I still think it's very league specific. In my league all the elite players are bid up, regardless of position and unless your algorithm accounts for the scarcity of elite talent you'll end up with a roster full of 2nd and 3rd tier players if you stick to a rigid math stance.

 
I'm glad this thread has gotten more fact-based over time. It started with more than its fair share of unsubstantiated, preferential claims being touted as "auction necessities". The problem was, those who swear by spending 80% of your budget on those top 3 studs were in disagreement with those shouting, "Never spend more than 20% of your budget on a single player!" But I'm the kind of guy who doesn't care how loud you shout your opinion; if you don't give me the hard facts, I simply have no reason to believe you. If I wanted these opinionated, unsubstantiated shouting matches, I'd watch Fox News.

Two articles that will give you what you need for auction strategy:

1) Maurile's pricing method article, and

(More importantly)

2) Chase's "Expected VBD" article.

This gives you all the cold, hard data you need to price players well. Ultimately, we spend money on Expected Points a player will add to our team. If your league generally spends $100 of $200 on RB1 and $60 on RB2, then PLEASE, for the love of mathematics, do not join in on the shenanigans. Take 6 RB3's and the top QB, TE, K, DST, and top 2 WRs COMBINED for that price. The 6 RB3's will likely outperform RB1 & 2 anyway, and hey, you got the best player at every other position. You will SMOKE your league. And my proof for this lies in Chase's historical VBD numbers. Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation.

I personally made my own custom auction excel sheet that averages VBD based on traditional baselines and Expected VBD from Chase's article (but flexible to every kind of scoring format), put in a dynamic pricing formula, and it has never steered me wrong. If I'm in a league where people are paying 2x my mathematical valuation at RB and only 40% of fair valuation at QB, I make sure I snatch up the number 1 QB at a major bargain (since that's where points are the cheapest on the dollar), and maybe even a second decent starter for trade bait (when the league catches on that it missed value at QB later in the season) or the top backup, and then budget for the cheapest points per dollar elsewhere in the league. If I end up with 5 RB3's in a 2-RB league, I'm not panicking in the least bit, because if I still truly bid where points were cheapest, I'll make up for my lower RB production and more at the other positions. People earlier in this thread were giving advice to avoid things (like drafting 5 RB3's) that MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE, rather than to avoid things that are mathematically losing strategies. This is an auction, and it's all math. Some of your intuitions will serve you well, but many will deceive you. Make a great cheat sheet and stick to it. If the league overvalued at one position, then make sure you grab the top players at other positions first. Then you can use your remaining money at the overspent-position and pick up lower-tier guys for relatively great prices, even if they're still above your auction sheet valuation. Since you already filled your other spots, it's now safe to "overspend", because you're sitting on top at the other positions.

As a general rule, I've found that ESPN's suggested auction prices this year overspend at high QB1, low RB1/high RB2, WR1, high WR2, and underspend at low QB1, high RB1, low WR2, low RB2, and TE1. So in those auctions I usually take a team like Romo, AP, McFadden, Gronk, and a bunch of low WR2's.
I hear what your saying, but I still think it's very league specific. In my league all the elite players are bid up, regardless of position and unless your algorithm accounts for the scarcity of elite talent you'll end up with a roster full of 2nd and 3rd tier players if you stick to a rigid math stance.
Exactly. It's entirely possible that your league mates could nominate a bunch of mid/late round players that you have valued higher a bit more than they do and you'd end up with a few of them early, potentially even at one position which could come back to hurt you. What is someone nominated 2 QB's(none ranked top 12 by you) and 4 RB's(none of whom you have ranked in the top 20), but all of them were sold for 10% less than your auction values. Technically you will buy that at good value, but it really limits the rest of your draft and could potentially even cause you to miss out on better values later in the draft when you already have too many qb's and rb's.

 
I'm glad this thread has gotten more fact-based over time. It started with more than its fair share of unsubstantiated, preferential claims being touted as "auction necessities". The problem was, those who swear by spending 80% of your budget on those top 3 studs were in disagreement with those shouting, "Never spend more than 20% of your budget on a single player!" But I'm the kind of guy who doesn't care how loud you shout your opinion; if you don't give me the hard facts, I simply have no reason to believe you. If I wanted these opinionated, unsubstantiated shouting matches, I'd watch Fox News.

Two articles that will give you what you need for auction strategy:

1) Maurile's pricing method article, and

(More importantly)

2) Chase's "Expected VBD" article.

This gives you all the cold, hard data you need to price players well. Ultimately, we spend money on Expected Points a player will add to our team. If your league generally spends $100 of $200 on RB1 and $60 on RB2, then PLEASE, for the love of mathematics, do not join in on the shenanigans. Take 6 RB3's and the top QB, TE, K, DST, and top 2 WRs COMBINED for that price. The 6 RB3's will likely outperform RB1 & 2 anyway, and hey, you got the best player at every other position. You will SMOKE your league. And my proof for this lies in Chase's historical VBD numbers. Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation.

I personally made my own custom auction excel sheet that averages VBD based on traditional baselines and Expected VBD from Chase's article (but flexible to every kind of scoring format), put in a dynamic pricing formula, and it has never steered me wrong. If I'm in a league where people are paying 2x my mathematical valuation at RB and only 40% of fair valuation at QB, I make sure I snatch up the number 1 QB at a major bargain (since that's where points are the cheapest on the dollar), and maybe even a second decent starter for trade bait (when the league catches on that it missed value at QB later in the season) or the top backup, and then budget for the cheapest points per dollar elsewhere in the league. If I end up with 5 RB3's in a 2-RB league, I'm not panicking in the least bit, because if I still truly bid where points were cheapest, I'll make up for my lower RB production and more at the other positions. People earlier in this thread were giving advice to avoid things (like drafting 5 RB3's) that MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE, rather than to avoid things that are mathematically losing strategies. This is an auction, and it's all math. Some of your intuitions will serve you well, but many will deceive you. Make a great cheat sheet and stick to it. If the league overvalued at one position, then make sure you grab the top players at other positions first. Then you can use your remaining money at the overspent-position and pick up lower-tier guys for relatively great prices, even if they're still above your auction sheet valuation. Since you already filled your other spots, it's now safe to "overspend", because you're sitting on top at the other positions.

As a general rule, I've found that ESPN's suggested auction prices this year overspend at high QB1, low RB1/high RB2, WR1, high WR2, and underspend at low QB1, high RB1, low WR2, low RB2, and TE1. So in those auctions I usually take a team like Romo, AP, McFadden, Gronk, and a bunch of low WR2's.
Great post. I don't want to misinterpret what you said and some of the below comments don't necessarily disagree with your statements, but a few points on the bolded above:

re: first bolded statement --- this is exactly why it's ok to overspend by a few $$ on a player; projections are just educated guesses, and there's an obvious margin for error. You also have to account for inflation during the auction and understand that if Adrian Peterson is anchored at a much higher price than where you have him valued, other RBs are likely to follow suit. You could either a) avoid bidding on all these guys and wait for value later on; b) you could target the guy with the smallest variance from your projected value; or c) you could get comfortable with overbidding to secure "safer" points. Obviously you prefer the first strategy here, but I'm not sure it's so cut-and-dry due to my next point below.

re: third bolded statement -- as other posters have mentioned, this appears to be an overly-simplistic approach. Bidding where points are the cheapest is a fine strategy and good owners will do that, but you have to ensure that you accumulate enough points to be competitive on a weekly basis; securing 5 RB3s may not do this. Sure, you can use the savings from these positions to target high-priced QBs/WRs/TEs, but having a balanced team is also important, no?

re: second bolded statement -- a guy in my league tried this last year. Took Drew Brees and then got Cam Newton cheap, but then Cam sat on his bench all season because owners were only willing to pay pennies on the dollar given that this guy had no leverage in a negotiation. Cam is better than a "decent starter" that you have outlined, so perhaps you would target more of a low-QB1 if value was right. However, my point is that once the auction is over, the $$ spent are meaningless. People realizing that they "missed value" during the auction means nothing.

 
You will SMOKE your league. This is an auction, and it's all math.
:grad:

Good job MathNinja, I'm a believer.

Now please point me to a formula that will help me avoid injuries.
To be fair, he also said "Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation." .... but I think a "math is all that matters" argument is a bit too simplistic. There are clearly auction dynamics at play.

I'm glad this thread has gotten more fact-based over time. It started with more than its fair share of unsubstantiated, preferential claims being touted as "auction necessities". The problem was, those who swear by spending 80% of your budget on those top 3 studs were in disagreement with those shouting, "Never spend more than 20% of your budget on a single player!" But I'm the kind of guy who doesn't care how loud you shout your opinion; if you don't give me the hard facts, I simply have no reason to believe you. If I wanted these opinionated, unsubstantiated shouting matches, I'd watch Fox News.

Two articles that will give you what you need for auction strategy:

1) Maurile's pricing method article, and

(More importantly)

2) Chase's "Expected VBD" article.

This gives you all the cold, hard data you need to price players well. Ultimately, we spend money on Expected Points a player will add to our team. If your league generally spends $100 of $200 on RB1 and $60 on RB2, then PLEASE, for the love of mathematics, do not join in on the shenanigans. Take 6 RB3's and the top QB, TE, K, DST, and top 2 WRs COMBINED for that price. The 6 RB3's will likely outperform RB1 & 2 anyway, and hey, you got the best player at every other position. You will SMOKE your league. And my proof for this lies in Chase's historical VBD numbers. Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation.

I personally made my own custom auction excel sheet that averages VBD based on traditional baselines and Expected VBD from Chase's article (but flexible to every kind of scoring format), put in a dynamic pricing formula, and it has never steered me wrong. If I'm in a league where people are paying 2x my mathematical valuation at RB and only 40% of fair valuation at QB, I make sure I snatch up the number 1 QB at a major bargain (since that's where points are the cheapest on the dollar), and maybe even a second decent starter for trade bait (when the league catches on that it missed value at QB later in the season) or the top backup, and then budget for the cheapest points per dollar elsewhere in the league. If I end up with 5 RB3's in a 2-RB league, I'm not panicking in the least bit, because if I still truly bid where points were cheapest, I'll make up for my lower RB production and more at the other positions. People earlier in this thread were giving advice to avoid things (like drafting 5 RB3's) that MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE, rather than to avoid things that are mathematically losing strategies. This is an auction, and it's all math. Some of your intuitions will serve you well, but many will deceive you. Make a great cheat sheet and stick to it. If the league overvalued at one position, then make sure you grab the top players at other positions first. Then you can use your remaining money at the overspent-position and pick up lower-tier guys for relatively great prices, even if they're still above your auction sheet valuation. Since you already filled your other spots, it's now safe to "overspend", because you're sitting on top at the other positions.

As a general rule, I've found that ESPN's suggested auction prices this year overspend at high QB1, low RB1/high RB2, WR1, high WR2, and underspend at low QB1, high RB1, low WR2, low RB2, and TE1. So in those auctions I usually take a team like Romo, AP, McFadden, Gronk, and a bunch of low WR2's.
I hear what your saying, but I still think it's very league specific. In my league all the elite players are bid up, regardless of position and unless your algorithm accounts for the scarcity of elite talent you'll end up with a roster full of 2nd and 3rd tier players if you stick to a rigid math stance.
VBD does account for scarcity of talent and it prices players based on their performance relative to a "baseline" player. That's one of the major premises behind MathNinja's point. What you want to account for is auction inflation, which I addressed in a post above.


 
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1) While it's considered a girly move, nominating a kicker / defense early is a good strategy. You get a top defense / kicker right away or someone else wastes a dollar.

2) Has anyone had success with nominating players far out of order? I'm not allocating a lot of budget to QB this season, so I'm thinking about putting up a non-Top QB (e.g., Romo, Wilson) with my first nomination. I feel like most owners in my league will be apprehensive because they don't want to overbid without seeing the prices of higher-ranked QBs, so I can potentially get someone on the cheap. Also, if I wait to be the last team drafting a starting QB, I think I will get a couple teams price-enforcing on that last starting QB which will drive the price up on me, or force me to take the 13th-14th QB off the board instead (in a 12-team league). On the flipside, doing this would require me to nominate someone I want, and tipping my hand could drive price up. Just curious to hear any war stories using this strategy.
Yes, #2 works wonderfully. I wrote a bit about using it in the article mentioned in my previous post.

Thing is you have to remember that what you're doing is testing other owners conception (and uncertainty) in the prices. People are used to thinking about salaries top down... if Rodgers makes $X then they understand what Roethlisberger is worth.

So the results can vary widely. You might get a steal, or the player might get drastically overspent. Or he might go for exactly what you had as his value. It's definitely worth doing.
Case by case. I tried this last year with Matt Ryan and it blew up in my face.
In what sense did it blow up?
I threw him out first round of bidding as the first QB of the board, thinking I'd get him cheap since QB value hadn't been established. Nope. He went for well above what I predicted.

But like I said it's case by case. Last year, Matt Ryan was surging up the boards during draft season, so this may have been an instance where he was sub-dermal, but still a hot commodity. To support your approach, I'd say throw out lower ranked guys early that you want, who aren't surging up boards come draft time. Then you can get value. I recall this happening in past years with 2nd tier players that come out in the first two rounds of nominations.
Not understanding why that "blew up". You made your leaguemates pay at least full freight for Ryan. So what?

I love using this strategy. Try and "steal" a midrange guy that you really like and want to get at a discount......by nominating him really early. Many times it works because teams want to save their money for the studs.

But I agree that it probably doesn't work for a guy that's "surging" up the draft boards.

 
Before the draft, I like to make predictions of the auction prices for my league and treat them as a menu. I pick out the best team that I can (assuming that the projected prices are the exact costs). Then I pick out a few more teams following different approaches or assumptions (e.g., studs & duds, lots of mid-level guys, lots of $ on RBs, very little $ on RBs, I take a top TE, I can't draft any of my favorite underrated QB, etc.). Often I don't bother picking out the exact team; instead it's things like "and I'll take 2 of these 5 WRs for $8-10 each."

That way 1) I get a sense of which strategies produce the teams that I like the best, so that I have a plan A going into the draft, and 2) I get a feel for how to build a team in various different ways, so that I can be flexible and change plans depending on how the draft goes.

During the draft, the main goals are 1) get good value (try not to overpay), 2) build a roster that fits together (e.g., filling starting spots with start-able players), 3) spend all my money, and 4) spend most of my money on starters (unless it's best ball, in which case everyone is a starter).
:goodposting:

This is pretty much what I do. I try to put together the best team that I can assemble given the fact that I want to use 90% of my cap for my starters + 1st backup RB. I budget for EVERY starting position and 1st backup RB. I use the "market" prices (estimates using mock auctions coupled with adjustments to tailor to my league's tendencies). Once I figure out what strategy I want to use, I try to make sure that I have at least 2 options (preferably 3 or 4) at every position. This is so I can keep my strategy intact even if I don't get a certain player.

I also calculate my optimal team using a $190 out of a $200 cap....and use $10 as a slush fund. That $10 is generally used for a postion that is going for more than what I expected it to go (to follow my original strategy). If I don't have to use it early in the draft, then I can take the $10 and outbid anyone late for the sleepers and any decent player that slipped through the cracks. Or I can use the $10 to buy another stud or a combination of players that are higher than the tiers that I have my optimal teams' players bucketed.....especially if a player is going for a discount in a higher tier than my "bucketed" player. Example....say if I have a targeted WR1 like Vincent Jackson/Victor Cruz/Randall Cobb budgeted for $20. Say Demariyus Thomas is being bid and the bidding stalls at $24 (you have him valued for $30). Then I can use the "slush fund" and bid $25 on Thomas and get an upgrade at WR1.

I never pay more than $1 for a K, Defense, and backup TE, never pay more than $3 for a backup QB, and never pay more than $5 for any backup WR. I only have $20 (maybe $30 if I didn't use my slush fund) to fill out my remaining roster. If a league is QB-2RB-3WR-1TE-K-D and has 8 backup spots for 17 spots in total, I am using $170-180 to fill out QB, 3RBs, 3 WRs, and a starting TE, for 8 positions, so I have $20-30 to fill out the remaining 9 spots on my roster. Since I pay only $1 for K, D an backup TE, and $3 for a backup QB, I have $14-24 to fill out the remaining 5 RB and WR bench spots.

My method takes a lot of prep, but I am totally prepared to take advantage of what happens in the draft because of it.

 
Before the draft, I like to make predictions of the auction prices for my league and treat them as a menu. I pick out the best team that I can (assuming that the projected prices are the exact costs). Then I pick out a few more teams following different approaches or assumptions (e.g., studs & duds, lots of mid-level guys, lots of $ on RBs, very little $ on RBs, I take a top TE, I can't draft any of my favorite underrated QB, etc.). Often I don't bother picking out the exact team; instead it's things like "and I'll take 2 of these 5 WRs for $8-10 each."

That way 1) I get a sense of which strategies produce the teams that I like the best, so that I have a plan A going into the draft, and 2) I get a feel for how to build a team in various different ways, so that I can be flexible and change plans depending on how the draft goes.

During the draft, the main goals are 1) get good value (try not to overpay), 2) build a roster that fits together (e.g., filling starting spots with start-able players), 3) spend all my money, and 4) spend most of my money on starters (unless it's best ball, in which case everyone is a starter).
:goodposting:

This is pretty much what I do. I try to put together the best team that I can assemble given the fact that I want to use 90% of my cap for my starters + 1st backup RB. I budget for EVERY starting position and 1st backup RB. I use the "market" prices (estimates using mock auctions coupled with adjustments to tailor to my league's tendencies). Once I figure out what strategy I want to use, I try to make sure that I have at least 2 options (preferably 3 or 4) at every position. This is so I can keep my strategy intact even if I don't get a certain player.

I also calculate my optimal team using a $190 out of a $200 cap....and use $10 as a slush fund. That $10 is generally used for a postion that is going for more than what I expected it to go (to follow my original strategy). If I don't have to use it early in the draft, then I can take the $10 and outbid anyone late for the sleepers and any decent player that slipped through the cracks. Or I can use the $10 to buy another stud or a combination of players that are higher than the tiers that I have my optimal teams' players bucketed.....especially if a player is going for a discount in a higher tier than my "bucketed" player. Example....say if I have a targeted WR1 like Vincent Jackson/Victor Cruz/Randall Cobb budgeted for $20. Say Demariyus Thomas is being bid and the bidding stalls at $24 (you have him valued for $30). Then I can use the "slush fund" and bid $25 on Thomas and get an upgrade at WR1.

I never pay more than $1 for a K, Defense, and backup TE, never pay more than $3 for a backup QB, and never pay more than $5 for any backup WR. I only have $20 (maybe $30 if I didn't use my slush fund) to fill out my remaining roster. If a league is QB-2RB-3WR-1TE-K-D and has 8 backup spots for 17 spots in total, I am using $170-180 to fill out QB, 3RBs, 3 WRs, and a starting TE, for 8 positions, so I have $20-30 to fill out the remaining 9 spots on my roster. Since I pay only $1 for K, D an backup TE, and $3 for a backup QB, I have $14-24 to fill out the remaining 5 RB and WR bench spots.

My method takes a lot of prep, but I am totally prepared to take advantage of what happens in the draft because of it.
Love the idea of budgeting for $190 and having a $10 slush fund

 
Before the draft, I like to make predictions of the auction prices for my league and treat them as a menu. I pick out the best team that I can (assuming that the projected prices are the exact costs). Then I pick out a few more teams following different approaches or assumptions (e.g., studs & duds, lots of mid-level guys, lots of $ on RBs, very little $ on RBs, I take a top TE, I can't draft any of my favorite underrated QB, etc.). Often I don't bother picking out the exact team; instead it's things like "and I'll take 2 of these 5 WRs for $8-10 each."

That way 1) I get a sense of which strategies produce the teams that I like the best, so that I have a plan A going into the draft, and 2) I get a feel for how to build a team in various different ways, so that I can be flexible and change plans depending on how the draft goes.

During the draft, the main goals are 1) get good value (try not to overpay), 2) build a roster that fits together (e.g., filling starting spots with start-able players), 3) spend all my money, and 4) spend most of my money on starters (unless it's best ball, in which case everyone is a starter).
:goodposting:

This is pretty much what I do. I try to put together the best team that I can assemble given the fact that I want to use 90% of my cap for my starters + 1st backup RB. I budget for EVERY starting position and 1st backup RB. I use the "market" prices (estimates using mock auctions coupled with adjustments to tailor to my league's tendencies). Once I figure out what strategy I want to use, I try to make sure that I have at least 2 options (preferably 3 or 4) at every position. This is so I can keep my strategy intact even if I don't get a certain player.

I also calculate my optimal team using a $190 out of a $200 cap....and use $10 as a slush fund. That $10 is generally used for a postion that is going for more than what I expected it to go (to follow my original strategy). If I don't have to use it early in the draft, then I can take the $10 and outbid anyone late for the sleepers and any decent player that slipped through the cracks. Or I can use the $10 to buy another stud or a combination of players that are higher than the tiers that I have my optimal teams' players bucketed.....especially if a player is going for a discount in a higher tier than my "bucketed" player. Example....say if I have a targeted WR1 like Vincent Jackson/Victor Cruz/Randall Cobb budgeted for $20. Say Demariyus Thomas is being bid and the bidding stalls at $24 (you have him valued for $30). Then I can use the "slush fund" and bid $25 on Thomas and get an upgrade at WR1.

I never pay more than $1 for a K, Defense, and backup TE, never pay more than $3 for a backup QB, and never pay more than $5 for any backup WR. I only have $20 (maybe $30 if I didn't use my slush fund) to fill out my remaining roster. If a league is QB-2RB-3WR-1TE-K-D and has 8 backup spots for 17 spots in total, I am using $170-180 to fill out QB, 3RBs, 3 WRs, and a starting TE, for 8 positions, so I have $20-30 to fill out the remaining 9 spots on my roster. Since I pay only $1 for K, D an backup TE, and $3 for a backup QB, I have $14-24 to fill out the remaining 5 RB and WR bench spots.

My method takes a lot of prep, but I am totally prepared to take advantage of what happens in the draft because of it.
Love the idea of budgeting for $190 and having a $10 slush fund
Agreed, I think that's what I'll be planning this year.

 
one strategy to try might be finding the biggest baddest looking dude at the auction and go up and just gut punch him right off the bat and then take him out sometimes when you are the new dog in the junkyard you have to find the lead wolf and take him out that is how you get respect if you know what i mean brohans so take that right to the bank bromigos

 
one strategy to try might be finding the biggest baddest looking dude at the auction and go up and just gut punch him right off the bat and then take him out sometimes when you are the new dog in the junkyard you have to find the lead wolf and take him out that is how you get respect if you know what i mean brohans so take that right to the bank bromigos
Don't forget to take his auction money. Easiest way to pwn an auction is to have twice the budget. :pickle:

 
one strategy to try might be finding the biggest baddest looking dude at the auction and go up and just gut punch him right off the bat and then take him out sometimes when you are the new dog in the junkyard you have to find the lead wolf and take him out that is how you get respect if you know what i mean brohans so take that right to the bank bromigos
I think I may have done this, or he acts like I did, this is the same guy who now makes it his mission to raise my bid any time I show interest in a player.

 
Before the draft, I like to make predictions of the auction prices for my league and treat them as a menu. I pick out the best team that I can (assuming that the projected prices are the exact costs). Then I pick out a few more teams following different approaches or assumptions (e.g., studs & duds, lots of mid-level guys, lots of $ on RBs, very little $ on RBs, I take a top TE, I can't draft any of my favorite underrated QB, etc.). Often I don't bother picking out the exact team; instead it's things like "and I'll take 2 of these 5 WRs for $8-10 each."

That way 1) I get a sense of which strategies produce the teams that I like the best, so that I have a plan A going into the draft, and 2) I get a feel for how to build a team in various different ways, so that I can be flexible and change plans depending on how the draft goes.

During the draft, the main goals are 1) get good value (try not to overpay), 2) build a roster that fits together (e.g., filling starting spots with start-able players), 3) spend all my money, and 4) spend most of my money on starters (unless it's best ball, in which case everyone is a starter).
:goodposting:

This is pretty much what I do. I try to put together the best team that I can assemble given the fact that I want to use 90% of my cap for my starters + 1st backup RB. I budget for EVERY starting position and 1st backup RB. I use the "market" prices (estimates using mock auctions coupled with adjustments to tailor to my league's tendencies). Once I figure out what strategy I want to use, I try to make sure that I have at least 2 options (preferably 3 or 4) at every position. This is so I can keep my strategy intact even if I don't get a certain player.

I also calculate my optimal team using a $190 out of a $200 cap....and use $10 as a slush fund. That $10 is generally used for a postion that is going for more than what I expected it to go (to follow my original strategy). If I don't have to use it early in the draft, then I can take the $10 and outbid anyone late for the sleepers and any decent player that slipped through the cracks. Or I can use the $10 to buy another stud or a combination of players that are higher than the tiers that I have my optimal teams' players bucketed.....especially if a player is going for a discount in a higher tier than my "bucketed" player. Example....say if I have a targeted WR1 like Vincent Jackson/Victor Cruz/Randall Cobb budgeted for $20. Say Demariyus Thomas is being bid and the bidding stalls at $24 (you have him valued for $30). Then I can use the "slush fund" and bid $25 on Thomas and get an upgrade at WR1.

I never pay more than $1 for a K, Defense, and backup TE, never pay more than $3 for a backup QB, and never pay more than $5 for any backup WR. I only have $20 (maybe $30 if I didn't use my slush fund) to fill out my remaining roster. If a league is QB-2RB-3WR-1TE-K-D and has 8 backup spots for 17 spots in total, I am using $170-180 to fill out QB, 3RBs, 3 WRs, and a starting TE, for 8 positions, so I have $20-30 to fill out the remaining 9 spots on my roster. Since I pay only $1 for K, D an backup TE, and $3 for a backup QB, I have $14-24 to fill out the remaining 5 RB and WR bench spots.

My method takes a lot of prep, but I am totally prepared to take advantage of what happens in the draft because of it.
Love the idea of budgeting for $190 and having a $10 slush fund
Agreed, I think that's what I'll be planning this year.
Couple of things:

1) make sure your $190 budget will generate you at least $200 in value, and that you have many options to achieve that.

2) make sure you SPEND the slush fund. Whether it's to secure a top RB and they're going for more than what you thought, or to upgrade to a higher tier player, or to get a much better RB4, or to steal good sleepers later......that will depend on how your draft unfolds.....but I would suggest not saving all the slush at the end. No reason to have extra cash to fund a couple of final spots.....you only need $2 per player at the most for the final 3-4 spots. So you if have $10 slush + $1 per roster spot left with a few spots left to fill, you will waste the slush fund. The best way to spend it is to use $7-8 to secure a top RB, upgrading to a higher tier, or getting a better RB4.....and saving $2-3 to steal sleepers later. But if you need the full $10 slush to upgrade say from say Andre Johnson to Calvin Johnson.....then it's probably worth it to spend it all to secure Calvin.

But the main purpose of the slush is keep your options open and maintain your basic strategy......you won't panic if things don't go as planned.

 
Anyone have any input as to how they use draft dominator for auction drafts that are done online? I am new to the tool and having trouble figuring out how to best utilize it.

 
I use a method similar to the "slush fund" method. First of all, this is the 8th year of our auction, so I have a good idea of what players will go for. I budget out how much I want to spend on each position. For example, I'll say QB ($50), RB ($100), WR ($45), and TE ($5). From there I break down each position on my team like so (RB1 $50, RB2 $30, RB3 $15, RB4 $5). I write all of these on the sheet that I'm writing my roster down on. To the far right I make a bank column to give money to or pull from. For example, if I want Adrian Peterson and spend $55 on it, I will write a (-5) in the bank in red. Now I know that I need to make up this $5 from another position. I'll let it ride until I pickup a couple of players to see if I can find value, but eventually I change my budget numbers on a position on my cheetsheet. However, if I get Peterson for value ($40) I'll write $+10 in the bank. Now I know that I can overbid $10 on a position later in the auction.

If the auction is going and I can't get the guys I want anywhere near what price I'm looking for I'll adjust my position budgets to reflect where I think I'll spend my money down the road. You have to be careful doing this though. If everyone else is overbidding early, it's better to overbid on a player or two. No one will have money left late, so you'll be alright.

I also do not budget for Def or Kickers, so my bank starts off at $-2. Generally people will try to sneak in a top defense or kicker early. I don't mind spending $5 on one if it's the defense I want, but the prices vary too much from year to year or even from the begining to the end of the auction to budget for.

 
I'm glad this thread has gotten more fact-based over time. It started with more than its fair share of unsubstantiated, preferential claims being touted as "auction necessities". The problem was, those who swear by spending 80% of your budget on those top 3 studs were in disagreement with those shouting, "Never spend more than 20% of your budget on a single player!" But I'm the kind of guy who doesn't care how loud you shout your opinion; if you don't give me the hard facts, I simply have no reason to believe you. If I wanted these opinionated, unsubstantiated shouting matches, I'd watch Fox News.

Two articles that will give you what you need for auction strategy:

1) Maurile's pricing method article, and

(More importantly)

2) Chase's "Expected VBD" article.

This gives you all the cold, hard data you need to price players well. Ultimately, we spend money on Expected Points a player will add to our team. If your league generally spends $100 of $200 on RB1 and $60 on RB2, then PLEASE, for the love of mathematics, do not join in on the shenanigans. Take 6 RB3's and the top QB, TE, K, DST, and top 2 WRs COMBINED for that price. The 6 RB3's will likely outperform RB1 & 2 anyway, and hey, you got the best player at every other position. You will SMOKE your league. And my proof for this lies in Chase's historical VBD numbers. Can we be sure that your projected RB19 will perform at historical VBD averages? Of course not, but at least history is on your side for your valuation.

I personally made my own custom auction excel sheet that averages VBD based on traditional baselines and Expected VBD from Chase's article (but flexible to every kind of scoring format), put in a dynamic pricing formula, and it has never steered me wrong. If I'm in a league where people are paying 2x my mathematical valuation at RB and only 40% of fair valuation at QB, I make sure I snatch up the number 1 QB at a major bargain (since that's where points are the cheapest on the dollar), and maybe even a second decent starter for trade bait (when the league catches on that it missed value at QB later in the season) or the top backup, and then budget for the cheapest points per dollar elsewhere in the league. If I end up with 5 RB3's in a 2-RB league, I'm not panicking in the least bit, because if I still truly bid where points were cheapest, I'll make up for my lower RB production and more at the other positions. People earlier in this thread were giving advice to avoid things (like drafting 5 RB3's) that MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE, rather than to avoid things that are mathematically losing strategies. This is an auction, and it's all math. Some of your intuitions will serve you well, but many will deceive you. Make a great cheat sheet and stick to it. If the league overvalued at one position, then make sure you grab the top players at other positions first. Then you can use your remaining money at the overspent-position and pick up lower-tier guys for relatively great prices, even if they're still above your auction sheet valuation. Since you already filled your other spots, it's now safe to "overspend", because you're sitting on top at the other positions.

As a general rule, I've found that ESPN's suggested auction prices this year overspend at high QB1, low RB1/high RB2, WR1, high WR2, and underspend at low QB1, high RB1, low WR2, low RB2, and TE1. So in those auctions I usually take a team like Romo, AP, McFadden, Gronk, and a bunch of low WR2's.
Fact, preset your values all you want - if your league-mates are spending a significant % more on their starting line up (all positions) than you projected for, and if you "stick to it", you will be left cleaning up on second tier players.

Whatever your math, if the rest of the league is far enough off your formula... you have to adjust.

Over time you recognize patterns like you ended with above... but inevitably it won't go down just as you call it.

 
Okay, so I finally joined my first auction league.... and I found out about it Friday. Draft is tonite. I'll most likely get smoked since I have had zero chance to mock an auction, but give me a critique or two on my strategy going in:

10 teams, 1 QB 2 RB 2 WR 1 TE 1 FLEX 1 D 1 K (no PPR)

* With WRs being that minimized, I am seeing myself going for three stud RBs. I'll most likely pass on some of the sexier names (Charles, Spiller, Richardson) and go for more of the floor type guys (Foster, Rice, Lynch).

* I feel the best place to manipulate player values is in the WR pool. There's a tier of four or five WRs who I really like and then a huse mass of guys who are a stinking pile of "same" to me. So if I decide to abandon the 3 RBs and go for 2RB with a stud WR, I feel I'd want to do it early. Snake a buy I really want (most likely Julio Jones since he's kind of the unsexiest of the top-6 players) and then nominate a couple of guys from "the soup" that others will like a lot more than me (Cruz, Cobb, Fitzgerald) and try to get the league to set the WR market higher at that point. Once that happens, I can fly under the radar with my targeted WRs of Tate and Givens.

* If there's a value at the top 3 QBs, I'll take it. But if not, I would gladly settle for someone like Eli as a bargain basement starting QB. But Bradford will be my backup. Too much upside there.

 
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Okay, so I finally joined my first auction league.... and I found out about it Friday. Draft is tonite. I'll most likely get smoked since I have had zero chance to mock an auction, but give me a critique or two on my strategy going in:

10 teams, 1 QB 2 RB 2 WR 1 TE 1 FLEX 1 D 1 K (no PPR)

* With WRs being that minimized, I am seeing myself going for three stud RBs. I'll most likely pass on some of the sexier names (Charles, Spiller, Richardson) and go for more of the floor type guys (Foster, Rice, Lynch).
Fair warning: in most auctions I've mocked this season (and both I've participated in), there's going to be absolutely no chance of you landing three first-round quality RBs without bankrupting yourself. Every one of the top 10 in my most recent one went for between $50 and $60 on a $200 cap. Your best hope would be to grab two of those lower-priced names (whichever they wind up being), and then a third guy who's got RB1 potential but a fair number of question marks (Murray, Mathews, Wilson), whom you should be able to score for somewhere in the $20 range.

I'd also recommend you throw out a few high-profile QB names and see if you can get others to drive the prices up. You really don't need a top-3 QB this year in a 10-team league, and once people have gone hog-wild on Rodgers, Brees, etc. you should be able to get a Wilson / Luck / Romo type for less than $10 and, later in the draft, load up on some good low-end WR1 / high-end WR2 names for pennies on the dollar. I don't normally recommend having the most money of anyone at any point in an auction draft - it usually leads to overbidding on second-rate players - but this seems to be as good a year as any for it.

Best of luck to you.

 
With only six combined starters between RB, WR and TE (some leagues are 2-3-1-1), that means prices for the top players at RB and WR might be a tad higher. And emphasis on getting great starters is a little bit more important. With prices on RBs out of control at times, based on the strategy you want to employ, I'd prefer to get a stud RB for around 50, Megatron, get a very good RB2, and then you'd still have around $60 to fill out the rest of your team. You should be able to get a good QB for around $10 (like RG3, Luck, Romo, etc.) depending on when they get put up. I have seen those guys go for around 10 in some auctions, but for close to 20 in others. It's all a matter of when they get put up. As for the stud RBs, you are best getting one of the first few to get put up, as if you wait till the last one or two in that top tier, more owners will be bidding and you'll have to overpay.

 
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This thread has me preparing differently. I am trying to determine costs of top RBs.

Could somebody post like the top 12 RB costs from a recent auction? Plus need to know how many $ available to each team.

Thanks a ton.

 
This thread has me preparing differently. I am trying to determine costs of top RBs.

Could somebody post like the top 12 RB costs from a recent auction? Plus need to know how many $ available to each team.

From looking at other leagues - looks like a big drop in cost around 7-10

Thanks a ton.
 
Thanks to everyone for your advice. I got screwed over in trying to bid someone up on Sproles and it really hamstrung my bench, but I am uber-giddy about the team I got. Glad you were here to collectively hold my hand through it.

 
So, after years of failing to get my regular leagues to entertain an auction, I'm just gonna get in one online and see how it goes. So rather than go with a couple o fbland online articles, I figured I would come to a bunch of diehards for some advice.

It seems to me like -when- you get the guys is almost as important as who you get. If there's 12 teams and 10 of them have their ace RB, then it feels like the last two guys are almost compelled to get into a bidding war to overpay in order to get one guy on their roster. So while I can see the value in throwing out a couple of name players to eat up everyone else's cap space, it seems like you can overdo it.

Then there's the way to construct a team. It seems like sinking cash in the deep QB pool is a losing proposition, but that's the only thing I feel certain of. I know a guy can go with the stars and scraps model or a "no starts, just talent" model. I'm willing to hear arguments on both.

Anyhow, these are just my initial impressions heading in. If I'm wrong on any of them, I'm willing to hear it. But what I'm more interested in are the intricacies... those hidden secrets that seem obvious once someone points them out but are hard to actually spot for myself.
The first part of what you said is what I'll speak to. Been in a 10 team, 10 keeper dynasty auction league for 5 years now. You would think I would figure out how to navigate these auctions well. I've won the sb in this league twice already and make the playoffs every year.

We just had this years auction on Friday and it might have been my worst effort to date. After announcing keepers, I had the 3rd most cap money to spend in free agents. Given that 100 players were already kept the pickings for elite talent are slim.

There were a few players of interest to me:

Calvin - I knew he would go go way more than I was willing to spend.

Bowe - he was my consolation in case I didn't get Marshall

Marshall - this was my real target.

Sjax - this is who I really wanted

Gore - he was my consolation if I couldn't get sjax.

Well, here is how it went down:

Calvin nominated right away and goes for like $70 ($260 cap).

Bowe is up next and I get in on the bidding. But I'm watching him get bid up pretty high and haven that he is my consolation if I can't get Marshall I didn't want to blow my load on him with the same amount that I could get Marshall with. I stop bidding at $17 and he goes for $18. I was not happy.

Marshall comes up and now BC he is the last elite wr on the board his price gets run up to the stratosphere and I drop out of bidding. Now I missed out on all 3!

Same thing happened with gore and sjax. Gore nominated first and few went for $27 while sjax went for $52. Missed out on both.

Next year I am bidding early and aggressively on the first Rb or wr I really like whether its my preferred guy or not. The earlier you grab a stud the cheaper you will pay.

Lesson learned (which I should have learned already)....

 
This thread has me preparing differently. I am trying to determine costs of top RBs.

Could somebody post like the top 12 RB costs from a recent auction? Plus need to know how many $ available to each team.

From looking at other leagues - looks like a big drop in cost around 7-10

Thanks a ton.
Completed my 12-team auction yesterday. Cap is $250, roster size is 21 players. QB/RB/WR/TE/3Flex/K with limited IDP (4 starters)

Top 12 RBs shook out like this:

Peterson $80

Charles $68

Rice $62

Martin $68

McCoy $66

Foster $60

Richardson $63

Spiller $62

Lynch $60

Morris $59

Forte $60

Johnson $50

Some other RB prices:

Jackson $35

Wilson $49

Bush $44

McFadden $42

Jones-Drew $38

Lacy $38

Gore $36

Murray $36

Miller $30

 
This thread has me preparing differently. I am trying to determine costs of top RBs.

Could somebody post like the top 12 RB costs from a recent auction? Plus need to know how many $ available to each team.

From looking at other leagues - looks like a big drop in cost around 7-10

Thanks a ton.
Completed my 12-team auction yesterday. Cap is $250, roster size is 21 players. QB/RB/WR/TE/3Flex/K with limited IDP (4 starters)

Top 12 RBs shook out like this:

Peterson $80

Charles $68

Rice $62

Martin $68

McCoy $66

Foster $60

Richardson $63

Spiller $62

Lynch $60

Morris $59

Forte $60

Johnson $50

Some other RB prices:

Jackson $35

Wilson $49

Bush $44

McFadden $42

Jones-Drew $38

Lacy $38

Gore $36

Murray $36

Miller $30

 
This thread has me preparing differently. I am trying to determine costs of top RBs.

Could somebody post like the top 12 RB costs from a recent auction? Plus need to know how many $ available to each team.

From looking at other leagues - looks like a big drop in cost around 7-10

Thanks a ton.
Completed my 12-team auction yesterday. Cap is $250, roster size is 21 players. QB/RB/WR/TE/3Flex/K with limited IDP (4 starters)

Top 12 RBs shook out like this:

Peterson $80

Charles $68

Rice $62

Martin $68

McCoy $66

Foster $60

Richardson $63

Spiller $62

Lynch $60

Morris $59

Forte $60

Johnson $50

Some other RB prices:

Jackson $35

Wilson $49

Bush $44

McFadden $42

Jones-Drew $38

Lacy $38

Gore $36

Murray $36

Miller $30

 
This thread has me preparing differently. I am trying to determine costs of top RBs.

Could somebody post like the top 12 RB costs from a recent auction? Plus need to know how many $ available to each team.

From looking at other leagues - looks like a big drop in cost around 7-10

Thanks a ton.
Completed my 12-team auction yesterday. Cap is $250, roster size is 21 players. QB/RB/WR/TE/3Flex/K with limited IDP (4 starters)

Top 12 RBs shook out like this:

Peterson $80

Charles $68

Rice $62

Martin $68

McCoy $66

Foster $60

Richardson $63

Spiller $62

Lynch $60

Morris $59

Forte $60

Johnson $50

Some other RB prices:

Jackson $35

Wilson $49

Bush $44

McFadden $42

Jones-Drew $38

Lacy $38

Gore $36

Murray $36

Miller $30

 
Just a humorous anecdote from my 14 team extended family league that bid last night. It's competitive but not completely. Everybody does homework and uses online resources, but only a couple of us are addicts. The 2-time defending champ is an addict and by far the biggest trash talker even when he's not winning. We love him, but he can be a major pita.

This can only happen in an auction. I have never seen it before.

Last night he overpaid for McCoy, Spiller, Cobb, Torrey and Gronk. He got caught a couple times trying to drive prices a little later. He hit $1 max bid before he had a QB. 14 teams. Deep benches. I have Luck but add Dalton for a buck so he can't have him. He nominates Bradford and I take him for $2 and he starts talking qb trash. The rest of the league picks up on his situation. Everyone starts nominating QBs and getting them for $1. He cannot bid $2. We never relented. He has Chad Henne and Mark Sanchez. :lol:

 
$100 budget. Any missing were kept.

$40 Rice

$39 Richardson

$36 Foster

$36 Lynch

$34 Forte

$20 Ridley

$19 MJD

$18 S Jax

$15 CJ

$14 Murray

 
Next year I am bidding early and aggressively on the first Rb or wr I really like whether its my preferred guy or not. The earlier you grab a stud the cheaper you will pay.
Highlighted for importance, for future FBG'ers conducting forum searches. No matter what year or what format your auction takes, this is typically the one constant.

Every year, almost without exception, the first stud nominated winds up going off the block for less than he would have had he been the last stud off the block. Often he goes for fewer actual dollars than later nominees ranked a tier below him! This usually, but not always, applies to the first stud nominated at each position, as well.

I won't make a blanket statement that "studs and duds" is the way to go - it's very draft-dependent - but I will say that you want a couple of studs on your team no matter what ... and you want them early.

 
Next year I am bidding early and aggressively on the first Rb or wr I really like whether its my preferred guy or not. The earlier you grab a stud the cheaper you will pay.
Highlighted for importance, for future FBG'ers conducting forum searches. No matter what year or what format your auction takes, this is typically the one constant.

Every year, almost without exception, the first stud nominated winds up going off the block for less than he would have had he been the last stud off the block. Often he goes for fewer actual dollars than later nominees ranked a tier below him! This usually, but not always, applies to the first stud nominated at each position, as well.

I won't make a blanket statement that "studs and duds" is the way to go - it's very draft-dependent - but I will say that you want a couple of studs on your team no matter what ... and you want them early.
I've noticed that as well.

And if nobody's nominating a certain player, it's because a bunch of the league wants him and likely think they can get him at a value (which won't happen).

Definitely a proponent of studs and duds in auctions. I always say, if you don't spend your money on really good players, you'll just have to end up spending it on crappy players.

There is absolutely no worse auction situation to be in than holding your money and realizing, as is always the case, that you weren't the only one. Next thing you know, you are in a bidding war with the other idiot for mediocre or bad players.

Not that it makes sense to blow it all early, but you have to grab some high priced guys, even if you think you're overpaying.

 
Next year I am bidding early and aggressively on the first Rb or wr I really like whether its my preferred guy or not. The earlier you grab a stud the cheaper you will pay.
Highlighted for importance, for future FBG'ers conducting forum searches. No matter what year or what format your auction takes, this is typically the one constant.

Every year, almost without exception, the first stud nominated winds up going off the block for less than he would have had he been the last stud off the block. Often he goes for fewer actual dollars than later nominees ranked a tier below him! This usually, but not always, applies to the first stud nominated at each position, as well.

I won't make a blanket statement that "studs and duds" is the way to go - it's very draft-dependent - but I will say that you want a couple of studs on your team no matter what ... and you want them early.
I've noticed that as well.And if nobody's nominating a certain player, it's because a bunch of the league wants him and likely think they can get him at a value (which won't happen).

Definitely a proponent of studs and duds in auctions. I always say, if you don't spend your money on really good players, you'll just have to end up spending it on crappy players.

There is absolutely no worse auction situation to be in than holding your money and realizing, as is always the case, that you weren't the only one. Next thing you know, you are in a bidding war with the other idiot for mediocre or bad players.

Not that it makes sense to blow it all early, but you have to grab some high priced guys, even if you think you're overpaying.
That was my exacts stake this year...well, that and being extremely inebriated. (Sp.?)

 
Next year I am bidding early and aggressively on the first Rb or wr I really like whether its my preferred guy or not. The earlier you grab a stud the cheaper you will pay.
Highlighted for importance, for future FBG'ers conducting forum searches. No matter what year or what format your auction takes, this is typically the one constant.

Every year, almost without exception, the first stud nominated winds up going off the block for less than he would have had he been the last stud off the block. Often he goes for fewer actual dollars than later nominees ranked a tier below him! This usually, but not always, applies to the first stud nominated at each position, as well.

I won't make a blanket statement that "studs and duds" is the way to go - it's very draft-dependent - but I will say that you want a couple of studs on your team no matter what ... and you want them early.
I've noticed that as well.And if nobody's nominating a certain player, it's because a bunch of the league wants him and likely think they can get him at a value (which won't happen).

Definitely a proponent of studs and duds in auctions. I always say, if you don't spend your money on really good players, you'll just have to end up spending it on crappy players.

There is absolutely no worse auction situation to be in than holding your money and realizing, as is always the case, that you weren't the only one. Next thing you know, you are in a bidding war with the other idiot for mediocre or bad players.

Not that it makes sense to blow it all early, but you have to grab some high priced guys, even if you think you're overpaying.
That was my exacts stake this year...well, that and being extremely inebriated. (Sp.?)
Definitely been there. Though, usually, if I make sure and drink enough before/during the draft, it helps me make sure to bid those extra bucks early.

 
Next year I am bidding early and aggressively on the first Rb or wr I really like whether its my preferred guy or not. The earlier you grab a stud the cheaper you will pay.
Highlighted for importance, for future FBG'ers conducting forum searches. No matter what year or what format your auction takes, this is typically the one constant.

Every year, almost without exception, the first stud nominated winds up going off the block for less than he would have had he been the last stud off the block. Often he goes for fewer actual dollars than later nominees ranked a tier below him! This usually, but not always, applies to the first stud nominated at each position, as well.

I won't make a blanket statement that "studs and duds" is the way to go - it's very draft-dependent - but I will say that you want a couple of studs on your team no matter what ... and you want them early.
Completely agree. Even to the point of tossing cute nomination strategies out the window early. Put your guy up right away and get him. I did this with Richardson and Wilson last night. I may not be overjoyed by the prices because both have been rising in general, but had I let them linger, the position/tiers become depleted, there's no doubt they would have cost more.

Like you said, this isn't fool proof. Two guys could be mad about McCoy and go nuts early. But as a general leg up on a league, get your studs while the gettin's good.

 
There is absolutely no worse auction situation to be in than holding your money and realizing, as is always the case, that you weren't the only one. Next thing you know, you are in a bidding war with the other idiot for mediocre or bad players.Not that it makes sense to blow it all early, but you have to grab some high priced guys, even if you think you're overpaying.
To build on this thought, there are three reasons "early" is at least as important as "high priced" in this context:

1) Earlier studs at a position are usually better value, since (as has already been mentioned multiple times) the remaining first-tier pool usually gets overbid as owners start to panic.

2) Especially if it's your league's first year as an auction (or your first year joining an existing one), you won't necessarily know what "overpaying" means. There are leagues where some or even most owners pay a ridiculous "stud premium", but the only way to find that out is to bid up a couple of studs early - not to nosebleed levels, but often a couple of bucks over what you'd consider "fair value". If the studs are all going to go for 50% more than fair value, better to know that right out of the gate and move to plan B for your draft immediately than to have it dawn on you after you miss out on a "relative bargain" or two in the early going by refusing to go a buck higher. Alternatively, if owners tend to undervalue the top tier, you pick up your studs right away at value prices - the best of both worlds.

3) You want to be in the best shape to capitalize on the fantastic values that inevitably pop up down the line, usually on guys in the 80th-110th overall ADP area. Nailing down a couple of studs early, rather than a bunch of 3rd- and 4th-round talents later, permits you maximum flexbility to take advantage of these ... because after picking up 2 or 3 of the top 25, you usually won't be able to afford much in the way of 3rd- and 4th-round talents (who IMO are typically poor value anyway), thus preserving not just your bankroll but your roster space. Every year I see multiple owners miss out on a stud RB or WR, pour $100+ into a stable of second- and third-tier guys to compensate, then watch helplessly as the equivalent of D-Rich or DeSean goes off the board for a third of fair value after they're tapped out and/or up against positional caps. You want to be the guy snagging Cecil Shorts for $2 an hour and a half in, not the one banging your head for missing out on him.
 

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